Many here, I’m sure, are aware of Mark Twain’s claim in The Innocents Abroad that Egyptian mummies were burned as locomotive fuel. “D–n these plebeians, they don’t burn worth a cent—pass out a King!”
Let’s just cut to the chase. My questions are: could you really use mummies as locomotive fuel? And, more importantly, could you use natural mummies, or even freeze-dried “mummies” to the same purpose?
And yes, I realize that this is unlikely to be as good a fuel as coal or oil. But finding out how much worse a fuel it’d be, if the materials would even burn properly at all, is the name o’ the game.
IDK but it’s easy to get a idea. In the hiking backpacking section of stores is usually freeze dried foods. Getting one take the meat only from it and see if it burns. I suspect it will.
I don’t see any reason why dried flesh and bone wouldn’t burn OK. However, flesh in particular will be of lower density than most woods or coal, and so will burn at a lower temperature and produce less heat. I can’t say whether this would be an issue in heating a boiler to a hot enough temperature, but I assume if you threw enough mummies in fast enough it might work.
Twain’s remark was clearly a joke. However, Egyptian mummies were treated with resins and oils, which would have made them much more flammable than a natural mummy.
A natural mummy may have the advantage of developing a coat of (I assume) flammable grave wax. Whereas a freeze dried mummy probably wouldn’t burn any better than leather.
Intuitively, it seems like most of the mass of a mummy would be nonflammable (i.e. bone or air pockets). So you’d need to feed them in pretty much constantly, and you’d have to remove the ash a lot more frequently.
Edited: mummies were preserved with (IIRC) asphalt-soaked rags, so those are quite flammable, but there’s only enough to cover the skin.
I guess if you wanted to prove the concept, you could have a train entirely of mummy-fuel storage, and have a firebox designed to be fed and emptied via conveyor belt. I bet that with the weight of the fuel and fuel-handling equipment, it wouldn’t even go 10 miles without needing a refuel.
I’m guessing that with the water removed, the heating value could be estimated from that of the constituent carbs/lipids/proteins. Does anyone have non-skeletal dry weight percentages on hand?
Anything containing carbon and hydrogen (in unoxidized forms) can work as fuel, mummies are not an exception.
However, Steam engines (fire tube type boiler) have grates through which ashes / stones leave the system. They paid good attention to ensure large rocks don’t go into the boiler.
My guess will be that mummy bones will clog the grating and won’t work.
Most of the non-bone weight of the body is going to be muscle mass. When dried, the caloric value is going to be similar to beef jerky, which has an energy value of 1,715 kilojoules per 100 g, or about 17,000 kJ per kg. Fat deposits might raise the average value somewhat, but not tremendously except for obese individuals.
From here, dry wood has an energy value of 16,300 kJ per kg, so very much in the same ballpark.
Bone does have some organic content, and will burn, but of course its caloric value will be much less per weight. The dry weight of a human skeleton is 2.5-5 kg.
The human body is about 60% water, with the proportion varying between tissues. But to get a ballpark figure, let’s assume a 160 lb/70 kg person. That will yield a 40 kg mummy. So the energy value of a mummy will be around 680,000 kJ. This will be equivalent to around 5 to 10 logs of firewood.
I’m wondering if Clemens’ comment is just an expansion of the idea that mummies weren’t treated with much respect by contemporary society, as shown by mummy unwrapping parties thrown in England when guests would have a grand old time taking turns unwrapping mummies just for shits and giggles.
Funny! From what I know about steam locomotives, when started from cold and dark, they use wood as kindling, adding the higher energy density coal once the fires get going.
I would imagine a dried mummy, consisting of loose hydrocarbons (protein, wax, etc.) would burn similarly to wood. So using mummys as kindling makes sense.